The religious reply to the moral sceptic`s question, `Why should I behave in such-and-such a way?` is simply `Because God requires it of you.` But this is merely a polite way of saying, `Because you`ll be punished if you don`t. [...] But a threat is never a logical justification for acting one way rather than another. If there exists a deity with the punitive vengefulness of the Judaeo-Christian variety, then it might be prudent to obey it, and thus avoid the flames of hell; but the threat of punishment is not a principled reason for obedience.

Believers unhesitatingly attribute every good thing in the world to God - and then respond to bad things by saying, "God works in mysterious ways." If God`s ways are so mysterious, and we can`t begin to understand his thinking behind tsunamis and drought and pediatric cancer, then what makes you think you understand his intentions when it comes to pretty sunsets or cute puppies or helping you find the peanut butter?

A lot of times when people make accusations like that about other people - "Oh, he can't really be doing this for principled reasons, he must have some corrupt, nefarious reason" - they're saying a lot more about themselves than they are the target of their accusations, because those people, the ones who make that accusation, they themselves never act for any reason other than corrupt reasons, so they assume that everybody else is plagued by the same disease of soullessness as they are, and so that's the assumption.

We all have a thirst for wonder. It`s a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I`m saying is, you don`t have to make stories up, you don`t have to exaggerate. There`s wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature`s a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.

Some friends don`t understand this. They don`t understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you`re wonderful just the way you are. They don`t understand that I can`t remember anyone ever saying that to me.

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